Seaberry

Seaberry (hippophae rhamnoides) is an extraordinary “Northern citrus alternative”. The bright orange berries can be pressed for a delicious juice that tastes like a cousin of orange, mango, or pineapple.

Seaberry also happens to be one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, packing high concentrations of:

  • vitamin E

  • vitamin A

  • vitamin K

  • vitamin B12

  • vitamin C (8x that of oranges)

  • a nearly complete range of omega fatty acids (including omega-7, usually found only in fish)

  • and, a range of important micronutrients like carotenoids, flavonoids, and antioxidants.

Seaberries can also processed into a number of dried products. Oils from the fruit and seed have been used in traditional medicine (in Russia and Northeast Asia) for centuries, and are also commonly used today in natural skin balms and other cosmetic materials. And the seeds themselves are a nutritious livestock feed — the Latin name hippophae means “shiny horse”, referring to the healthy coats of the animals that fed on its seeds.

This amazing fruit grows on a vigorous shrub that is adaptive to a wide range of soil conditions, extremely hardy to cold and wind, and fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil, providing free fertility to themselves and to surrounding plants.

These characteristics make seaberry a generous and useful “community member” in diversified agroforestry systems, creating multistrata shrub or hedge layers between overstory tree crops and understory pasture, and regenerating soil while sharing free fertility to its neighbors.

The economics of seaberry are a somewhat similar case to those of chestnut. There are already well-established agricultural industries producing seaberry in the Baltic region of Europe, as well as the Himalayan region of Asia. In these places, seaberry is a common ingredient used in a wide variety of food and other products. But there is virtually no commercial seaberry production or industry in the U.S.

Between 2025-2027, Breadtree will plant about 3000 shrubs to demonstrate and produce data on a number of interplanting schemes that incorporate seaberry within chestnut and hickory savannas.